Cruz Ramirez, #51 Racer
Mr. McQueen's not used to hearing his name in the media this often any more, and whatever coping mechanism he'd used to tune the noise out before is well out of practice. Every time it happens, it throws his attention like a boomerang, and maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to come to "the biggest BBQ dump on the big Kansas City border" - or whatever the restaurant's eminently catchy acronym was supposed to stand for. BBBQBKCB's six TVs are blaring five racing channels (the other is golf), and they're all talking about Lightning McQueen.
Cruz waits for her mentor's attention span to cycle back around. He's trying.
For a moment it looks like it's going to happen, but then RSN-3 makes mention of Storm following McQueen's example: He will race without a crew chief this weekend. Maybe for the rest of the season. It's a parallel the news has been drawing a lot lately - Doc and Mr. McQueen, Ray and Jackson Storm. It's the only way anyone seems to know how to talk about it.
Not that you can judge, Cruz, she reminds herself. She can't bring herself to call it anything but 'it.' She doesn't want to think about it. She just wants everyone to be okay.
"I wasn't setting an example," Mr. McQueen mutters, though maybe tonight he's more Lightning than Mr. McQueen. Just Lightning. "That's not what I - "
"We could find someplace quieter," Cruz suggests, because their conversation derailed so long ago the debris was cleared from the tracks and several other trains had come and gone. Lightning hasn't found his way back to the station.
"Eat your brisket," says Lightning. "What were we talking about?"
"Storm," she says, and she almost loses him again - loses him to whatever was or was not an example he'd meant to set, whatever it had been like when Doc died, whatever that was now supposed to mean for Storm. She asks, "Do you think he's doing all right?"
"I think you can guess the answer, Cruz."
"You know that's not what I meant. I just wanna make sure - "
"I don't - " Lightning breaks off. He's distracted again. "I don't know."
"Someone should check in on him," Cruz insists. She doesn't even like Storm, but -
"He doesn't even like you," Lightning says, pensive. He stays with the thought. "Maybe instead we should - "
For a moment, his expression flickers from pensive to pained. "Maybe we just need to stay out of his way."
Cruz is pretty sure they're already in the way; the TV's making sure of that. They're so in the way Lightning's getting run over by anything that comes for Storm. Cruz finishes her brisket before Lightning ever registers there's a plate in front of him, and he seems so out of it Cruz doesn't even make a fuss about food waste when he slides it into the trash, untouched.
When they leave, the walls ring with the same rejoinders: Lightning McQueen. Jackson Storm. Precedents set. Honor your crew chief? Ray Reverham found dead in Kentucky hotel room.
This wasn't supposed to happen.